A Look At Ronda Rousey's Contributions To UFC, 5 Years After She Became Champion

In mid-January 2011, UFC President Dana White was about to slide into the passenger seat of an all-black SUV when TMZ stopped him to ask women would fight in the UFC. Without missing a beat, White replied, "never.”

On December 6, 2012, White, hosting the UFC on FOX 5 press conference in Seattle, WA, said, “Bring the champ out here,” to a smattering of applause.

“I’m going to make it official right now,” White continued. “The first ever UFC women’s champion, Ronda Rousey. And I’m presenting her with her belt, and I’m announcing her fight – in the UFC – February 23 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. She’ll be fighting Liz Carmouche, and she is the main event.”

And with that, the “never women” era of the UFC came to an end.

That’s not to say the UFC was all-in on women fighters from that point. It was quite the opposite. Had Rousey failed to defeat Carmouche at UFC 157, there was a real possibility that there would not have been another women’s fight in the UFC – at least for some time. Before that fight, White went as far as to call the women's 135-pound division, "the Ronda Rousey show."

But Rousey did win. Her victory opened the door for more women's bantamweight fights. In December 2013 the promotion announced it would form a women’s strawweight division. Then in May of this year, the UFC said it planned to add a women’s flyweight division.

Again, there’s no telling if the 125-pound and 115-pound weight classes would exist right now had Rousey not defeated Carmouche via an armbar submission at UFC 157. But she did – and now there is a deep roster of women competing in the UFC.

White feels Rousey deserves all the credit for shining a spotlight on women’s MMA.

“(Rousey is) underrated. Look at what she did. Look at what she built. She started it all,” White recently told the Pardon My Take podcast. “You had such a dominant female fighter. She was so bad ass and she spoke well and she was pretty. That whole combination of what she was built that whole female mixed martial arts phenomenon. She was the right person at the right time to do it.”

Today, five years since she was awarded the UFC women’s bantamweight title after the UFC shuttered Strikeforce, where Rousey was champion, she remains a member of the UFC roster. However, it looks like her career has come to a close.

Rousey’s two most recent fights ended in knockout losses. Holly Holm ended her title reign with a head kick in November 2015. In her next outing, current champion Amanda Nunes scored a 48-second TKO win over Rousey. That fight took place in December 2016. Since then, Rousey has been off the UFC radar.

Before those defeats, Rousey was 12-0 with 12 stoppage victories. Nine of those stoppages came via the move that made her such an intriguing figure – the armbar. Her other stoppages came via strikes.

Despite an undefeated streak that lasted more than four years, Rousey was quickly labeled a fraud or over-hyped by both MMA and mainstream media following her defeats. It was an ugly way for someone as prideful and accomplished as Rousey to go out.

If one considers Rousey’s career in a vacuum, it’s hard to call it a failure, a fraud or overhyped. She dominated her division like only a few other fighters have. She defended the UFC title six times in under three years. Four of those contests ended in 66 seconds or less.

The problem with Rousey is that she made it difficult to only consider her in-cage achievements. Her brash and sometimes belligerent attitude rubbed some people the wrong way. There’s also the fact that success breeds contempt in sports, and for some reason, success in MMA seems to beget a lot more distaste than in team-based sports.

There’s also the way Rousey handled her losses. Instead of speaking about her defeats to the media after the fights, Rousey went radio silent. She insulated herself from the outside world and only made a few handpicked media appearances. In the lead up to her fight against Nunes, Rousey even skipped the previously sacrosanct fight week media obligations.

When you compare the way Rousey handled defeat to the way someone like Conor McGregor did when he lost to Nate Diaz or how Joanna Jedrzejczyk did when her 14-fight winning streak came to an end with a TKO loss to Rose Namajunas, it's night and day. Both fighters were applauded for the way they faced the media's questions immediately following their setbacks, despite the fact that McGregor and Jedrzejczyk both fall into the brash and cocky category.

So, five years after she became UFC champion, what are Ronda Rousey’s legacy and her contribution to the sport?

Her legacy is one of a dominant champion who might have become too isolated and too reliant on one aspect of a sport that rewards those who are well-rounded and continue to attempt to improve at all times. Her judo got her to the top of the MMA world, but it was also her downfall as opponents were eventually able to figure out her weaknesses and exploit them.

Another part of her legacy is the fighter who refused to step outside of her comfort zone of Glendale Fighting Club when things went awry in the Holm fight. Instead of searching out a gym with a coterie of coaches who could help her shore up her weaknesses, she stayed with the trainer that brought her to the dance. That might have been hubris or dedication or a combination of the two. Whatever the reason, Rousey did not progress between the Holm and Nunes fights.

Her contribution to the sport isn’t as complicated. She kicked the door open for women to become a part of the UFC. Once she did that, fans and more importantly, the UFC, saw that women can put on fights that are just as entertaining as any men’s fight.

During that time, Rousey became one of the most popular fighters in the history of the UFC. She crossed over into the mainstream. She brought fans to the sport who would have never considered watching a UFC event before Rousey arrived on the scene.

Today, the UFC has three women's weight classes (and champions) and a growing roster of women fighters. Five years after Rousey held the UFC title in her hands for the first time, the women's divisions are no longer the "Ronda Rousey show."

I am a freelance writer who has covered a wide variety of topics over the years. I’ve written about crime, technology, fitness, and entertainment for a variety of outlets. These days I mostly focus on MMA as a contributor to MMAjunkie and now Forbes. I make my home in Baltim...